They Stole My Twin's Crown

By the time I reached the royal palace, the coronation was already underway.

Rosalind Vale sat beside Emperor Lucien Arden wearing the imperial phoenix crown.

My parents sat below the dais, smiling as though the woman being crowned were their own daughter.

I watched through the crowd for one long moment, and I didn't move.

Strangling them where they sat would be letting them off cheap.

First, I needed to find Elara.

I avoided the Imperial Guard and came in through the old passage beneath Ardenhall, into the palace where my sister had lived.

Moonrest Palace had once belonged to her.

Before Elara married into the royal household, I'd prepared a hundred slabs of alabaster for the floors and twenty pear trees for the courtyard. Every piece was written into her dowry inventory.

Now the alabaster had been pried out.

The pear trees were gone, cut down to the roots.

Even the carved MOONREST PALACE plaque had been ripped from the gate and thrown into the mud.

A palace maid stood on it, scraping dirt off her shoes.

She looked up when I approached.

For one second, confusion crossed her face.

Then she sneered.

"Lady Elara. You've got nerve, crawling out of the Winter Wing."

She thought I was my sister.

I looked at the white-opal bracelet on her wrist.

I'd given that bracelet to Elara the day she came of age.

"Where did you get that?"

The maid lifted her wrist so the stone caught the light.

"Her Majesty gave it to me. Your old jewelry, your dresses, everything you owned—it's all hers now.

"She could let one trinket slip through her fingers and it'd still be more than you'll see again in your life."

"I see."

I nodded.

"Take it off."

The maid stared at me as if I'd told a joke.

Then she shoved my shoulder.

"Today's Her Majesty's coronation. Get back to the Winter Wing.

"If His Majesty catches sight of that wretched face, you'll earn yourself another whipping."

I let myself take half a step back.

"Another?"

The maid's smile widened.

"Last month you offended Her Majesty, so the Emperor ordered thirty lashes himself. Those wounds still haven't closed, have they?"

Last month, on the northern frontier, I'd hurt for an entire night.

Now I knew why.

Elara had taken thirty lashes.

The maid mistook my silence for fear.

She raised her hand to slap me.

I caught her wrist.

I still didn't strike back.

"Why was she sent to the Winter Wing?"

The maid struggled.

"Because she was jealous of the Empress and killed the child in Her Majesty's womb. His Majesty didn't even send her poisoned wine. That was mercy."

Footsteps thundered through the gate.

Several guards rushed into the courtyard.

Their captain drew his sword.

"Lady Elara, release her and kneel for punishment."

The maid was brave again in an instant.

With her free hand, she grabbed my hair.

"A deposed consort, laying hands on me? I'll ruin that face for Her Majesty myself."

She tore a hairpin loose and drove it at my eye.

That was when I smiled.

I tilted my head aside, took the pin out of her hand, and put her face-first into the mud.

"You like stepping on things?"

I planted my boot between her shoulder blades.

"Then stay down a while."

I took Elara's bracelet off her wrist.

Then I caught her by the chin and turned her toward the fallen plaque.

"Clean it with your tongue."

Her eyes widened.

"Leave one patch of mud and I take a tooth."

She shook her head violently.

I kicked a front tooth loose.

"I don't like saying things twice."

The captain charged.

I stepped aside, broke his sword wrist, then drove the hilt into the back of his knee.

He dropped.

I forced him down beside the maid.

"She cleans it with her tongue."

I pressed his face to the stone.

"You use your face."

He cursed at me.

"His Majesty will never forgive this!"

I leaned slowly into my boot until the rough stone scraped his cheek raw.

Only then did he go quiet.

I crouched beside him.

"Good."

Then I smiled.

"Now tell me where my sister is."